


The Bridge

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Series: Beginnings [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Referenced Exchange of Drugs for Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 04:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5321216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock’s fingers stir in his hand.  “You’re going to kiss me now?”  </p><p>It sounds more like a statement than a question, and John lets out a small huff of a laugh.  “That is what I’m trying to get at, yeah.  If you like.  If you want, I will.  I’d like to.  If that’s okay.”</p><p>"Yes.”</p><p>And then suddenly they are there, standing on the brink of the thing they have been dancing around from the moment they met, the gap that always seemed too big, to momentous to bridge.  Now, in this moment, it seems necessary, inevitable.  And so John does the only thing there is to do.  He kisses Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> Had a little bit of writers block this weekend. Just wrote this real quick, last night, to give myself a little kick start. There may be two more chapters. It feels a like it needs two more to really wrap up. But, I think it stands fine on it's own, too. So, I'm not really considering it a WIP at the moment.
> 
> Edit: Decided to make it a series of three. This is part 1.

All John can do is follow at Sherlock’s heel, the best he can, as he bolts heedlessly through the teeming, sweaty, throng inside the nightclub.  

The music is loud, loud enough that speech is impossible.  John can feel the bass line thrumming in his chest like a second heartbeat.  The dance floor is a sensory onslaught—dozens of colognes, the scent of alcohol, pheromones, and hot, straining, hungry humanity.  Hands grope and grab, but he ignores them.  There is only one thing drawing his focus at the moment, and that is Sherlock, forehead slick with sweat, hands trembling, skin unnaturally pale even in the flashing pink and blue lights of the club.

And then, suddenly, the exit looms before them.  Sherlock throws the doors open forcefully, with both hands, ignoring the shouts of the bouncers manning them, and heads for the street where he stops for a moment, clearly agitated, shaking his hands at his sides as he stares first up one side of the street, and then down the other.

The temperature difference between the club and outside hits John like a slap in the face.  It’s grown cold while they were inside, hunting down their contact.  The night sky is glowing slightly orange, city lights reflecting off of low-hanging clouds, the flakes of the winter’s first snow just starting to float lazily down between the buildings.

“Sherlock!”

But, he’s already taken off down the sidewalk, walking so fast that John has to pick up his pace to a run, just to catch up.  When he finally does, he falls into step beside him, and steals glances at him every time they pass under a street lamp.  Sherlock’s shivering.  He’s dressed for the club—tight jeans, a button-down that’s undone nearly to the bottom of his sternum and now plastered to his sweat-slick torso like a second skin. 

“Stop.  Sherlock, Stop!”  John reaches out and grabs at his hand, but he tears it from John’s grasp before rounding on him, eyes wide, wild, glimmering.  There is snow in his hair.  His breath comes in small, quick puffs that hang in the air between them.  He opens his mouth, once, twice, three times, before turning again, and heading toward the river at his former pace.

“You need to stop this.  You need to tell me what’s happened,”  John protests, breathlessly, as he races back into step beside him.  “What’s happened?  Was he there?  Did you get the information we needed?”

They enter the tunnel that leads to the river.  There is blessed shelter from the snow, but it’s colder than street level, too, and Sherlock’s shivering is only getting worse.  He stops dead when they reach the end, and slumps against the wall, staring out at the snow falling into the inky blackness of the Thames.

John reaches out and tentatively touches his arm.  He’s ice cold, the fabric of his shirt, nearly frozen now that his body temperature has started to drop.  “No.  This is no good Sherlock.  Here…”  John shrugs out of his coat, and coaxes Sherlock into it.  It’s too short everywhere, and looks ridiculous, but he’s able to zip it up the front, anyway, and it’s warm from his body.  It’s something.

Sherlock is still staring out at the water.  “I knew him.”

John is startled a little by the sudden proclamation after so much desperate silence.“Who?Our contact?”

Sherlock nods.  “I’d forgotten the name.  I’m not good with names.  But I never forget a face, even if I can’t always put the right name to it.  I knew him, John.  And I think he recognised me, too.”

“Okay…”  John tries, tentatively.  “So, you recognised him, he maybe recognised you.  But did you get it?  Did you get the address?  Did you get the list of names?”

Sherlock’s eyes flutter away from the river, to meet John’s.  They’re glazed, pupils dilated.  John frowns.  “What did you take?”

“I remembered how he tasted, John.  I remembered it, and I had to get out.”

John swallows tightly.  “What?”

Sherlock just holds his gaze, like he’s looking desperately for something, anything.  Like he needs an anchor, maybe, and John’s the only thing that will do.  But he mustn’t find what he’s looking for, because after a moment he pushes away from the wall, and heads across the pavement to the river.

John just stands frozen, and watches him go.  Watches him walk to the railing, stare up at the sky, rock up onto the balls of his feet and lean up, over the railing, over the water.

“Hey!”  John’s at his side, hand on his arm, yanking him back with near panicked, unnecessary force.  

Sherlock blinks down at him.  “Don’t be stupid, John.”  But, there’s something soft, and almost intimate in it.  It’s a thank-you, not a reprimand.

“You’re cold.  We should go home.  You need to eat, a bath, and then to bed.  Doctor’s orders.”

“Are you disappointed?”

The corner of John’s mouth twitches upward, weakly, in confusion.  “About the case?  Of course not.  There will be other chances.”

Sherlock doesn’t say anything.  He blinks twice, and let’s his eyes wander the length of John’s body.  He frowns.  “Where’s your coat?  It’s too cold for you to not be wearing a coat.”

John smiles, indulgently, relieved.  “You’re wearing it, you idiot.  I just put it on you a few minutes ago.”

Sherlock looks down at himself, and then back up.  “You’ll get ill.”

“I’ve got a jumper, and a scarf.  You were half naked.”

“Are you angry?”

“About you going out improperly dressed?”

Sherlock shakes his head.  “About him.”

“The contact?  I’ve told you, ‘no’.  We’ll figure something out.”

Sherlock huffs out a small sigh, that almost sounds frustrated.  “Yes.  I suppose.”

It’s snowing more heavily, and it’s grown cold enough, now, that the snow is starting to collect where metal piles, and railings, and bench legs meet pavement.  Sherlock’s curls are limp, but dusted white, occasionally a flake or two will catch on his eyelashes before he blinks them away.  He looks young, small, vulnerable.  

John’s chest feels tight.  “Can I ask…?”  He swallows dryly.  It’s a bad idea.  He doesn’t want to know.  Not really.

“Ask.  You can ask if you want.”

Sherlock is staring out over the water again, and John steps beside him, steals a glance, and then stares out at the city lights glimmering on the other side, himself.  “What did you mean?  What did you mean you could remember how he tasted?”

John sees Sherlock’s head jerk in his direction, no doubt shocked by the temerity of such a question.  John keeps his eyes trained over the water.  He doesn’t want to look.  He’s not sure he can bear what he might see in Sherlock’s eyes.

After a moment, Sherlock returns his gaze to the river.  “When I was twenty-one Mycroft found out about the drugs.  He cut me off.  He would continue to pay for my education, my flat, have food delivered weekly, but no allowance.  I needed it by then.  Can you understand, John.  Can you understand needing something to change, when everything is too much, and not enough, and you just need something to help make it all different?”

John shakes his head, sees Sherlock looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but like a coward, he still can’t manage to meet his gaze.

“Well, I needed it, and—I no longer had any means of procuring it.  There was a boy, I knew.  He and I used to get high together sometimes.  He liked to draw me.  He said I had—beautiful hands and feet.  He told me he knew a man, a man who procured the best—clean stuff, you understand—and who would accept non-monetary payment, on occasion, if you had something he deemed valuable enough.  Victor said he thought I had exactly what this man valued, and left it at that.  It turned out, I did.”

John feels his stomach flip over, and turn sour.  He shouldn’t ask.  He wants to know for sure, but it’s not on.  It wouldn’t be in the least bit…

“You want to ask me, John.  So, ask.”

John just shakes his head.

“My mouth,” Sherlock offers anyway.

“Sorry?”  John turns without thinking, but Sherlock has gone back to studying the swirling eddies of the river below them.

“My mouth, around his cock.  That’s what I had to offer.  I had, ‘ _a mouth that was made for sucking cock,_ ’ according to Gordon Knightley.”

“Jesus,” John spits into the darkness.

“You’re disappointed in me.  You thought I’d never been with anyone.  You liked the idea.  This makes you uncomfortable.”

John does turn then, stares at Sherlock until he finally turns his head to meet John’s fiery and insistent gaze.  He looks heartbreakingly vulnerable for the briefest of moments.  “Nope,” all John can manage to get out.  It’s rough, and tight, and angry.

A small furrow forms between Sherlock’s brows. 

“You want to know what makes me uncomfortable, Sherlock?”

John’s question is met only with silence, but he sees Sherlock swallow, blink several times in swift succession.  

John jerks his head back in the direction of the club.  “You, being put in that position, alone again, because you didn’t want me there, in that room with you, for my own safety, or Christ knows what reason.  I’ve half a mind to go back up there, and fucking smash my knee into that bloke’s mouth until he’s never able to utter another fucking word again.”

Sherlock’s eyes go wide, and then narrow.  “Why?”

John purses his mouth, shakes his head, incredulous.  “Why?!”

“Yes.  Why?”

John sucks in a breath through his nose, and balls his fist tight, willing the ache away.  “The day we met, you walked over to me, you took my phone, and you said, ‘Afghanistan or Iraq?’.  Do you remember?”

Sherlock nods.

“And then you proceeded to tell me everything about myself.  Everything.  Do you know what a gift that was?”

Sherlock just stares. 

“I was lost.  I had spent months on a therapist’s couch trying to figure out who I was now I was back in London, a civilian, and you took one look at me, and said, ‘army doctor’.  You gave me my life back, my identity back.  That mouth…”  John knows he’s staring now, it is a beautiful mouth, gorgeous really.  Even John can’t lie to himself that much.  He’d acknowledged it years ago, on that first case, and only tried to avoid dwelling on it too much since then, but now…  “That clever mouth—it was made for so much more than…”

Sherlock’s nostrils flare a little, a muscle in his jaw jumps.  His eyes sparkle in the lights reflecting off the river.  “It didn’t mean anything, John.  With him.  That.  It—it was meaningless.” 

“I know.”

“But it matters to you…”

“Yes.”

“You’re angry.”

“Yes.  But not at you.”

Sherlock’s breathing has picked up again, quick, shallow.  He’s worrying the tips of his fingers together.  John steps closer, reaches out, takes one of Sherlock’s hands and stills it between his own.  “It’s okay.”

“I want it to stop.”

“I know…  Let me help.”

“Help what?”

“Help get the taste out.”

Sherlock’s lips part slightly.  He blinks once, stares.

“If you want.  Only if you want,” John amends hurriedly.  He’s not sure where the words have come from, or even what he intends to do next, only that it’s wrong, it’s wrong Sherlock feeling this way, looking this way, when there might be something he can do.

Sherlock’s eyes drop to John’s mouth.  His tongue darts out to instinctively moisten his lips.  The look of vulnerability has returned, and has been joined by something else, too, something that looks a little like worry.

“This doesn’t have to mean anything.”  Sherlock’s eyes snap up, and John realises immediately that he’s got it all wrong.  “No—I just mean that…  It does mean something.  It means something.  It means a lot.  It’s just that—there doesn’t have to be anything more.  You understand what I’m saying.  Just this, it’s enough—if you want, if that’s all you like. I…”

Sherlock’s fingers stir in his hand.  “You’re going to kiss me now?”  

It sounds more like a statement than a question, and John lets out a small huff of a laugh.  “That is what I’m trying to get at, yeah.  If you like.  If you want, I will.  I’d like to.  If that’s okay.”

“Yes.”

And then suddenly they are there, standing on the brink of the thing they have been dancing around from the moment they met, the gap that always seemed too big, to momentous to bridge.  Now, in this moment, it seems necessary, inevitable.  And so John does the only thing there is to do.  He kisses Sherlock.

He was worried it might be evident that his heart is racing a million miles a minute, that his body is flush with a rush of adrenaline and a ridiculously inconvenient burst of nerves, but it doesn’t take him long to realise that the way Sherlock’s lips press against his, stiff, unmoving, pursed, simply resting, indicates an equal level of uncertainty, perhaps even evidence of inexperience.  

Sherlock has kissed Janine Hawkins.  That is the only kiss John knows of for sure.  And admittedly, he hadn’t watched.  He’d looked anywhere in the bloody room rather than at Sherlock’s lips pressed against hers.  He has no idea if that kiss was as stilted, controlled (terrified?) as this one.

John pulls back a little.  Sherlock’s eyes are closed.  “You okay?”  Pale eyes blink open, meet his.  “Is it okay?”  John asks again.  Sherlock nods, and John smiles.  “Maybe try to relax just a little.”

Sherlock’s mouth forms into a silent ‘O’, but then he nods, and let’s his eyes slide closed again, standing, John supposes, in anticipation of John’s next attempt.  And so John makes one—gentler this time, a soft glide of lips, lingered breath, a thumb brushing lightly against one cheekbone.  When Sherlock starts to relax, to draw closer, and almost melt against him, he risks the tiniest taste, just the tip of his tongue testing, easing Sherlock open.  And he does, Sherlock lets him in, lets their tongues mingle.  

His mouth is sour with alcohol and the stale taste of cigarette smoke, and John knows he probably still tastes of tea, and the left over fried rice he’d wolfed down before they’d headed out to the club hours earlier, but it doesn’t matter, because Sherlock’s arms, which had been hanging loosely at his side, have lifted, fingers tentatively inching under John’s jumper, to spider along his ribs, through his shirt.  

The trembling has stopped.  Sherlock seems wholly and fully focussed now, storing away memories, John supposes, hopefully new ones, better ones, than those had followed him out the doors of that club tonight.  John let’s Sherlock drink his fill.  He can hear laughter echoing hollowly at the far end of the tunnel behind them, and the hurried footsteps of people descending the stairs from the street level.  It’s very late, or rather very early.  The clubs of Vauxhall are just beginning to empty.  It’s so cold John can barely feel his toes, but the rest of him is warm, and Sherlock’s forgotten any hesitance now.  Their tongues tangle, and dance, and it’s better than John imagined it would be.  It’s easier.  And he isn’t sure why he didn’t try it years ago, before the world fell apart around them.

The group of rowdy club goers finally emerges from the tunnel behind them, grows silent for the briefest of moments, and then erupts into an appreciative barrage of hoots and hollers.  John scowls a little, and pulls away, but Sherlock just chuckles against his lips and pulls him back in for more.  It isn’t until their laughter and whistling fade into the night again, that Sherlock finally pulls away to stare down at him.

He’s dusted all over with snow, and, John realises as Sherlock reaches down and brushes some from the shoulders of John’s jumper, so is he.

“It shouldn’t be snowing this much so early in the year,” Sherlock murmurs, tone still low, soft, and incredibly intimate.

“No,” John agrees, because he doesn’t quite know what else to say.  “It really shouldn’t.”

“Dinner?”

John smiles.  “Starving!”

Sherlock chuckles.  “I know a good Chinese near here.  Stays open ’til two. You can always tell a good Chinese by examining the bottom third of the door handle.”  He winks, and John feels the old familiar tug of arousal it’s always elicited.  He doesn’t fight it.

“It’s after that now, I think.  Home maybe?  There’s some risotto and lamb left over from the night before last.  I can reheat it.  There’s a bottle of Pinot Noir in the pantry, too, I think.”

“Home then,” Sherlock agrees. 


End file.
